Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The parathyroid glands were first described by Sir Richard Owen in a neck dissection of an Indian rhinoceros at the London Zoological Gardens in 1850. Credit for recognition of the ‘glandulae parathyreoidae’ goes, however, to Sandström, who published a monograph in 1887 on dissection of the para thyroid glands and their blood supply in animals and human cadavers. Unfortunately , Sandström committed suicide at the age of 37 and it was not until the 1890s that his work was rediscover ed by Gley , who associated tetany following thyroid surgery with removal of the parathyroid glands. In 1905, MacCallum found that he could relieve postoperative tetany by the injection of parathyroid extract. While the association between parathyroid enlargement and bone disease was reported in 1907, it was not until 1925 that the first parathyroid ectomy was performed by Mandl in Vienna on Albert Gahne, a tram conductor with severe primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) and osteitis fibrosa cystica.